Found Your Own NLP Startup!

Summer Semester 2022
Prof. Dr. Alexander Koller
Software Project (8 CP) + Companion Seminar (4 CP), MSc LST/LCT
Tue 10-12, location TBA

Start date: TBA (first week of semester)

Seite für Studierende im BSc Computerlinguistik (auf Deutsch)
Page for BSc & MSc Computer Science students (in English)

Have you ever dreamed of founding your own language technology startup? Would you like to realize your own ideas, become financially independent, and change the world?

Then you should participate in this software project.

Information about COVID-19: I have planned this software project under the assumption that we can teach in person in the summer semester 2022. If we can’t, we will have to cancel the course.

Size limitation: Please note that this is a supervision-intensive course, so attendance is limited to ~15 students.

Structure of the course

Everything starts with your idea for a real product that your startup will develop, or your willingness to contribute to someone else’s idea. You should already come to the first meeting with your product idea, at least in a basic form. Over the course of the semester, you will then team up with others and build a prototype of your product.

At the same time, you will develop your business idea together with the experts of the university’s startup center and learn how to found a business. The startup center usually charges fees for such courses; you will learn these things for free. This part of the course will consist of 5-6 meetings of four hours each.

Furthermore, you will meet alumni of our department who have founded startups in the Saarland themselves, and will learn from their practical experience.

The outcome of the course will be that each team has developed a prototype and written a business plan. You will have worked out a pitch for your product and tested it on our expert jury. Thus, you will be fully equipped to raise capital, found your company, and participate in startup competitions and accelerators.

Prerequisites

You will develop a functioning prototype of your product in this class. Thus you should bring solid programming skills.

I urge you to familiarize yourself with Github before the semester starts. Using Github or a similar tool will be essential for collaborating in your team, and we won’t have time to learn how to use it after the semester starts.

Companion seminar

This course goes beyond most software projects, in that it is not only about software development, but about producing the concept for a real startup. Thus, the workload will exceed that of a normal software project. On the other hand, you will participate in an intensive learning experience on highly practical topics and produce a very real result that goes beyond our usual academic environment.

In order to reflect this added workload, the companion seminar offered by the startup center will count as a regular seminar for you (4 CP). The software project and its companion seminar can only be attended together. In total, you will receive 12 CP for the two classes.

Organizational details

Pre-registration: Please pre-register for this course by February 23 so I can get a sense of the number of participants.

Organizational meeting: We will meet on Friday, March 4 over Zoom for some initial discussions about the software project. I will send you the access details before the meeting. If you can’t make it to the meeting on that date, please let me know in the pre-registration form.

Examination: Software project: present your project idea (talk), present your prototype (talk), and write technical documentation for your prototype. Companion seminar: write your business plan and present it (talk).

Photo by Brit Worgan on Scopio